


Josie Vector

by moriahisnotevil



Category: Original Work
Genre: Language, Multi, disturbing imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 02:48:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18240860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moriahisnotevil/pseuds/moriahisnotevil





	Josie Vector

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ArtisticallyInsightful1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtisticallyInsightful1/gifts).



Prologue:

Josephine Vector, known as Josie to her friends, had proudly acknowledged her eccentricity for as long as she could remember. Ever since she could express herself, she had stunned everyone around her with her brightness and creativity, giving even her school teachers a run for their money. She learned twice as quickly as her fellow students in school, sometimes, her parents and teachers had noticed, a bit too fast, as she soared through her school books and got her homework done before she even left the school for the day, unless it was required to do at home, like an art project or an essay. However, there was more to her behavior than merely seeing the world from a unique perspective. 

Shortly before her seventh birthday, she had wandered outside in the middle of the night one night. Her parents had been devastated. After opening her bedroom door to check on her, they had noticed that her bed covers had been dropped to the floor, and she was nowhere in the house. After phoning the police, they had made call after call to anybody they knew, apologizing for waking people and letting them know their daughter was missing. The next morning around ten o'clock, they got a call from the police station telling them that their daughter had been found curled up in a gutter five streets away from their house, dirty, cold, hungry and, to top it off, disoriented. When asked why she’d left the house in the first place, she refused to answer, insisting that they wouldn’t understand, anyway. 

Needless to say, she hadn’t been allowed outside by herself for a while afterwards. A few months later, her parents decided to take her to see a psychiatrist, due to many strange patterns of behavior. For one, she had taken several more nighttime strolls, a few of which she was caught before she got to the front door. Her parents, and a few teachers at her school, had described various changes in mannerisms upon being caught at certain things, because she had taken to wandering off in what people would describe as a dream-like state, her expression blank, body language unreadable. Often, when she came to her senses and realized she was being chased and scolded, she would get frightened and confused . Sometimes, she would start to scream and plead with people not to “erase” her. 

This, of course, led to more visits to the psychiatrist. These visits became regular, even after Josie seemingly got over her strange behavior for a while. Everyone, including Josie herself, agreed that she and Dr. Harper had a way of talking to one another that the two girls alone understood, which made her actually WANT to make these regularly scheduled appointments. However, unbeknownst to even Dr. Harper, Josie had a very dark secret that she swore to herself she would confide to nobody. This secret would be the gateway out of a complicated past, into what she would eventually consider her destiny, dark and sinister, but not regretted. Josephine Vector could interact with the dead, just as naturally as she could with the living.

Chapter One:

The moon shone dimly onto the front porch of a small house in Roltery, Arkansas. Two girls stood on the porch, dressed in t-shirts and jeans, taking in the beauty of the glittery red brick and whispering to one another.

“Janet, you look sick. Is everything okay?” 

“Hm? Oh, yeah. Uh, you know what? I think I am actually a little sick.”

“Maybe you should go home. We could do this another time.”

“No way, Josie! I'm not skipping out on this! I promised I would do this with you and I plan to keep that promise!” 

Oh, Janet, thought Josie, looking into her friends green eyes and rolling her own blue ones. Classic Janet Davies. Sixteen and stubborn as Hell, but at least she's a loyal friend. 

“Look, Janet. This house is not going to be torn down any time soon. Abandoned it may be, but it belonged to one of the most brilliant masterminds of all time.”

“Oh, listen to you. 'Abandoned it may be’. Josie, you're fifteen, not ninety.” Here, she flicked a ladybug out of her curly, bright red hair. “But no, seriously. I want to come in with you, because it's probably soon to be illegal for us to even go near. Like you said, we all know who lived here. God, I still can't wrap my head around it! Has it really been two months?”, she asked, taking her thick brown glasses and cleaning them on her plain grey t-shirt. 

“Yep”, responded Josie, removing a thick clamp from her own hair, which was long and black, “and the house has hardly been touched by anyone, even police. So I think it's pretty clear that nobody wants to go in. No telling what kind of things could be in there.” 

“So, that's exactly why we're going in?”

“Yes. Because neither of us are going to miss this opportunity.” She reached into the pocket of her blue jeans and pulled out a small flashlight. “You ready?” 

“After you, old lady”, said Janet, making sure her cell phone was placed carefully in her pocket. (Josie had decided to leave hers at home.)

Carefully, the girls snuck around the back of the house, spotted the window that had been left open the day the owner of the house had died, and flashed the light inside. They were looking into a small bedroom, with a queen size bed, a long wooden credenza, and a thin blue-grey carpet. Signalling to Janet that everything was okay, Josie swung her legs through the low window and climbed into the dead man's bedroom. Janet had a bit of trouble getting through the window so quickly, as she was a bit bigger (Josie weighed two hundred pounds). However, as soon as they were through, the girls had an easy time maneuvering. 

As they explored the bedroom, they tried to put things back where they found them, as well as not to take anything. Buddy Garland, the man who had owned this house, had been notorious for his intelligence. He was also very kind to his neighbors. He had lived in this house for nearly forty years, doing everything kind except for inviting people over. Then, two months ago, his sudden, unexplained death was all over the news. He hadn't even died in the house. He had been found a mile from it, lying face down in a ditch, frozen to death. The problem was, it had been a very warm night. Nobody had said anything since, because nobody knew anything else. Or so they said.

The girls slipped through the bedroom door into a small hallway that led straight forward into a living room, complete with a leather arm chair, a table with a plate of molded food, and a neat stack of DVDs beside a now dusty TV. Right off the living room, the kitchen stared at them in a strange, almost sad manner. Dirty dishes in the sink, a few flies surrounding them. A table with a single chair and a small candle in the middle. 

“That's just sad.” Josie may have sounded a bit sarcastic, but she mean what she said. This house had belonged to such an amazing man, a man who had died from only God knew what, had been found frozen on a warm night…

Stepping back into the hallway, they saw a few more doors. The first door led to the bathroom. Needles to say, there wasn't much interesting there. However, in the next room, some sort of storage room by the look of it, Josie began to feel something, something she hadn't felt for a few weeks now, at least. But it was a feeling she didn't expect, one that caught her off guard. Without warning, Janet screamed and clamped both her hands to her forehead. She continued screaming for about ten seconds, Josie attempting to calm her and ask her what was wrong. But she thought she already knew…

Janet stopped screaming, and began to retch instead. Clutching her stomach, she bent over and puked all over the blue grey carpet. The puke, Josie observed, was a bright, almost glowing green. This was definitely starting to look more and more like... Finally managing to speak, Janet said in a week, raspy voice, “Josie, I'm really sick. We need to get home.”

“Okay. Let's go. We've explored enough.” Grateful that they lived right next door to one another, she could disguise her watching Janet from here to the house as simply walking home with her. Because Janet thought she was just sick. But Josie knew better. She knew exactly what was going on. The girls stepped back through the window and began to make their way home, which was only a few streets away, Josie watching Janet closely the entire way. 

When they got home, Janet seemed to feel a lot better, and told Josie she just thought she might need some sleep. “Good night Josie. Text you when I wake up?”

“Please. Let me know if you feel better. Good night.” As she unlocked the front door and carefully shut it, Josie felt pretty certain that her friend would be okay. She knew Janet would feel better in the morning. She knew because she had seen what was really going on. She was glad Janet was gonna be fine, but concerned at the same time. Buddy Garland may be dead, but there was still somebody in that house. Now, Josie had a vague idea how the old mastermind had died, she thought as she walked up the steps to her bedroom. She was going to investigate it herself, she thought as she picked up her cell phone from her pillow and looked at the time. 11:00 PM. She was only an hour late home. That was excusable for Mom. 

There's no way around this, she thought as she closed her eyes to try and sleep, I'm going to have to look into this myself. It's my job. It's my destiny.

Chapter Two:

Jordan Oliver stood on the balcony of his cheap apartment, a cigarette in his hand, admiring the beautiful lights of Roltery and breathing in the cool night air. It was just past eleven PM. He should be asleep. He had work at five thirty, but he couldn't clear his mind from today's events. They'd just been so… God, there was no word for them. He'd gotten home from work, dressed out of his suit and tie into more casual attire, and eaten the wonderful lunch his wife had prepared for him. Then, all of a sudden, he began to notice that his wife and his fourteen year old son, Dillon, were acting a little strange. 

When he had entered the living room after eating his lunch, Helena had instructed him to stay there until she told him otherwise. This was a little concerning, he had thought as he ran his fingers through her shoulder length blonde hair. Was she getting ready to give him bad news? As he recalled thinking this, he laughed at himself now, the light breeze rustling through his puffy, black head of hair. 

However anxious the situation had made him in the moment, he should have realized nothing was wrong, the way Helena had flashed her bright hazel eyes and grinned as she walked back out of the kitchen and into the bathroom with Dillon, instructing him to use the one in the lobby downstairs if he couldn't hold it. Anyhow, he'd remained in the living room, not even bothering to turn on the TV. The first time he'd heard Dillon and Helena scream with laughter,he had realized this couldn't be anything terrible, and his anxiety had calmed significantly. He remembered specifically wondering why they were spending so much time in there. It had to be at least most of the afternoon, with his wife and son occasionally coming out to tell him not to look yet.

He'd heard the laughter several more times before the bathroom door finally opened, and Dillon and Helena stepped out. 

At first, Jordan was surprised. “What the…?”

“Uh”, said Dillon, his voice full of uncertainty. “Is it, uh, are you…”

“No, no! I'm not mad. Just, this, I...wow.” 

“What do you think, Jordan?”, Asked Helena, a look of happy satisfaction on her face. 

“Whoa. Wow. You've gotta give me a minute. Don't worry, I'm not mad. Wow.”

Both Helena and Dillon had come out of the bathroom giggling and telling him he could look now. Helena had dyed her hair a light purple, and had changed into a beautiful glittery blouse with blue lotuses on its front, a pair of dark blue jeans, and a new pair of black wedges on her feet. She was wearing a dark red lipstick, almost burgundy. He had to do a few double takes before confirming with himself: Dillon was dressed the very same way. 

The initial shock quickly ended, and after a few minutes of speechless marvelling, Jordan and Helena explained to their child that they had grown up with so many friends and chosen family from the LGBTQ community, although Jordan had not really expected this, but obviously he wasn't upset over it. Well, the clothes had been a bit pricey, but that would soon be forgotten. 

Helena had gone on to explain to Jordan that their child had expressed, upon being picked up from school, that he felt like his life wasn't really for him. When asked what he meant, he had simply said that he didn't know what she and Dad would think about this but 

“ I don't feel right being a boy.”

“Oh!” Jordan had said softly upon being told this. “Do we have a different name to work on?”

Laughing nervously, their daughter hung her head and mumbled something.

Jordan and Helena had both reached down to hug her. “What was that, honey?” Asked Helena gently.

“I… I kinda thought maybe Dana.”

“Dana it is!” Jordan hugged his daughter tighter. “If you don't like that, we can change it later, Kay?”

Dana had nodded. They had spent the rest of the day out, as a coming out treat for Dana. They went out to eat, hung out in the local Park, and later gone back to the store for more feminine clothes. They eventually ended up back home, watching movies and eating popcorn. Dana had been so relieved to be automatically validated by her parents, she had cried before their first movie started.

Getting up from the balcony and stepping back in, Jordan thought of all the changes he would want to make to Dana's bedroom, if she wanted them, along with trying to figure out how they were going to inform the teachers, if at all, also depending on Dana's comfort. It was now midnight. He decided to try for a few hours of sleep. He could do without a shower in the morning. His clothes were already prepared, and he could heat one of those breakfast sandwiches to go. He always brought his coffee with him, and there was some at work too, so that wouldn't be a problem. 

So, with thoughts of his wonderful wife and kid, he finally drifted off into a blissful few hours of sleep.

Chapter Three:

Rebecca Vector stirred at the smell of bacon and coffee seeping under her bedroom door. Stretching, she slowly swung her feet out from underneath her huge, white, cotton comforter. She'd slept so well last night that she hadn't heard Josie come home. Slipping into her fluffy, turquoise house shoes and stretching again, she walked across the room to grab a robe from the closet and pull it on before heading down to partake in Josie's surprisingly wonderful cooking. Honestly, she couldn't for the life of her figure out where she'd learned to cook like she could. Sure, there were a few members of the immediate family that were decent, but nowhere near as good a chef as her daughter. 

“Good morning, Mom”, Josie greeted her mother with a hug.


End file.
